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Man Arrested for Creating Fake Bands With AI, Then Making $10 Million by Listening to Their Songs With Bots (futurism.com)

submitted 2 months ago by ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to c/technology@lemmy.world

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The songs that the AI CEO provided to Smith originally had file names full of randomized numbers and letters such as "n_7a2b2d74-1621-4385-895d-b1e4af78d860.mp3," the DOJ noted in its detailed press release.

When uploading them to streaming platforms, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, the man would then change the songs' names to words like "Zygotes," "Zygotic," and "Zyme Bedewing," whatever that is.

The artist naming convention also followed a somewhat similar pattern, with names ranging from the normal-sounding "Calvin Mann" to head-scratchers like "Calorie Event," "Calms Scorching," and "Calypso Xored."

To manufacture streams for these fake songs, Smith allegedly used bots that stream the songs billions of times without any real person listening. As with similar schemes, the bots' meaningless streams were ultimately converted to royalty paychecks for the people behind them.

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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 302 points 2 months ago (26 children)

Fuck it. This scam was clever enough that I appreciate and sorta admire it.

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Y'know this guy seems intelligent enough to come up with this scheme, but not intelligent enough to keep a low profile. I honestly don't understand that.

Personally, I'd do the math to pay myself a living wage with this so that my actual work salary is nothing but a cherry on top; manage it so it seems like hype is ebbing and flowing in a natural way. If you ever figure out a way to break the system like this, you should never act in a way that draws attention to yourself.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s like the person who figured out the free gas card hack and let her friends use it. If she’d kept it herself, she’d still get free gas.

[–] person420@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 2 months ago

Just like in this case, it isn't straight forward. She wasn't simply "letting her friends use it", she was selling use of the trick.

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